Thursday, March 16, 2017

The belief that those in power are using the court system to punish their opponents bespeaks a deep cynicism about Taiwanese politics The Taipei District Prosecutors Office on Tuesday indicted former president Ma Ying-jeou over allegations that he abetted a leak of classified information during an investigation against an opposition lawmaker in 2013. Ma, of the Kuomintang party (KMT), was in office from 2008–16. According to the court, his actions were in violation of the Communication Security and Surveillance Act, the Personal Information Protection Act and the Criminal Code. In September 2013, State Prosecutor-General Huang Shyh-ming reportedly provided Ma with transcripts of wiretapped conversations between Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng of the KMT and Ker Chien-ming, a senior lawmaker from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), collected as part of an ongoing investigation into influence peddling at the Legislative Yuan, the nation’s parliament. My article, published today in The National Interest, continues here.